The much dreaded adoptee birthday

How do you really explain to people in the "nonadopted" world what your birthday as an adoptee truly means?  That it is probably the one day a year you dread more than any other because it is the most gut wrenching emotional day you share with your first mother.  Especially since twelve years ago I was given one of the best birthday gifts an adoptee could hope for, acknowledgement that your birthday was not forgotten and instead, you were remembered.

August 24, 1999 a date I will never forget I received via the court a 40th birthday card.  From the prior non-id letter exchange I had told her all about myself part of which is that I collect shells, baskets, love to garden and to write, and my favorite color was green the color of "our" eyes.  She had found a green Hallmark card with a basket filled with ivy, shells, with a pen and a pencil on it. I wonder how long it took her to search to find that card, the obvious time she must have spent, and how symbolic it was.  She was "listening" to what I had said and then signed it "Love, your Birthmother".  I remember holding the card in my hands knowing her hands had touched it.  I didn't want to let it go.  Little did I know this would be the last contact I would have from her.

It's gotten better over the years I am in good company in the adoption community.  I know now I am not alone in how I feel and that validation is worth millions in alcohol and or therapy.  I know that what I want and need to fill my life is not something I can "get over", "forget", or see as anything other than a tragedy that is the separation from my first mother.  That primal wound thing that will never go away that so many of us have to deal with year after year.


I've done my best in adoption educating and reform to get people to see that adoption is NOT all about creating a happy and loving family, it FIRST destroys one.  That's how I feel on my birthday destroyed and devastated for what could have been for a mother that wanted to keep her child but society and her family at her young age of 17 offered her no options other than to be hidden away and forced to relinquish her own flesh and blood.  Happy Birthday?  I think NOT.

My adoptive parent never remember my birthday and continually forget. They can't help it this day holds no real meaning for them they didn't know me until I was two weeks old.  My first parents won't acknowledge me let alone the day I was born.  How can you celebrate this type of pain?  Why would anyone want to?


I pray someday my first mother can come forward and break free from the secrets and stories that hide my existence.  I want to know my siblings.  I want and NEED to know the faces and names from where I came.  I want that for my children too.  I hope this all makes sense it so hard to type through tears.


So, I'll repost this poem I wrote about ten years ago.  I still holds true to this day.  It probably always will.

Unhappy Birthday

There were no birth announcements.
No cigars were handed out.
No newborn baby pictures.
No parent's joyous shouts.
No counting toes and fingers.
No comparing eyes and chins.
No nursery decorated.
No proud grandparent grins.
Instead the day that I was born,
a mother silently wept.
While in a room close to her,
her newborn daughter slept.
So close we were together.
So far we're now apart.
Two lives were separated.
A love doomed from the start.
And so each year since I was born,
this day has been the same.
No one can know the sadness.
No one can know the pain.
No candles ever bright enough
to light my darkened soul.
No happy birthday party.
No heart that can be whole.

Unclaimed - Adoptive and Birth Parent Rejection

Unclaimed

Never wanted, never named.
Long forgotten, never claimed.
Forever hidden, always rejected.
Held a secret, never accepted.
Unacknowledged, left alone.
Disregarded, kept unknown.

I wrote this poem last night it wraps up the words that come to my mind being twice rejected by adoptive and birth family.  I wish the nonadopted world knew how much every conversation, comment, day, hour, is filled with family terms.  Mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, cousin, and grandparents, daily conversations revolve around subject matter regarding family plans, future, holidays, and history.  I told my friend who I have been preaching to who is attached at the hip to her family, and yes I know this can also by extremely painful and exhausting too, the total opposite is the worst hell and pain I could almost believe anyone could bear.

Many Adoptees can have such a hard time feeling they belong many times caught between two worlds.  One we don't feel familiar with and another totally unknown to us.  We are not blank slates waiting to be written on we are hereditary creatures formed from biology and then shaped by our environment.  Only in adoption are genetics white washed as unimportant.  We are made to fit into nurture which our very nature can disagree with so much of the time.

"The need to identify with someone, to feel a part of something, to belong somewhere, is one of our most basic needs."  John Bradshaw

Let's conduct an experiment.  Let's have everyone carry around a pad and paper that tells us it doesn't matter, don't think about it, move on with our life and have them place a mark for every time in a 24 hour period a family member came up in their daily conversation, thought, and experience.  Then have them do the math on 24-7-365.  I think this could be quite eye opening.


For many of us this is a double whammy rejected by both our adoption and birth families.  My birth family feels my adoptive family is my family and don't rock the secret that is my existence.  And, my adoptive family feels I've betrayed them by becoming the exact opposite of nearly everything they believe in and wanted me to be.  Parental Rejection...it rocks the foundation of what nearly every individual's life is based upon, family connections and relationships and leaves us watching with unfathomable sadness through a window from outside into a world where we don't belong.

Adoption Educating

I've decided, in the limbo I am in waiting to be able to petition the adoption court again for the other half of my medical history, to educate the new Confidential Intermediary I have.  This is the fourth CI I believe I have had in the last 12 years of petitioning for identifying information about my biological family.  The first CI Jane was wonderful.  She was understanding, helpful, and seemed to be very supportive of a reunion between my birth mother and myself even helping facilitate communication between my birth mother and myself via the court to set up a relationship to expand upon later in person.  Then enter the second CI, Lita Bishop.  It was then my "reunion" went south.  Lita was cold and unconcerned and even went so far as to tell an adoptee who I sent to her, adopted out of the same county court system, "You know these birth mothers really don't want to be found".  This statement before she had even had any idea if her birth family did or did not want contact or the adoptee's adoption situation.  I was ABHORRED to say the least!  I was so glad to learn Lita Bishop was gone.  Hopefully she retired and took her closed minded judgemental attitudes and practices with her. 

The third CI I don't remember well as years passed without much contact with the court system.  This fourth one seems nice and willing to help but really...when you pull up an adoptee's file PLEASE read carefully and do NOT give them inaccurate, SENSITIVE, soul wrenching information and then take it back with a statement of "Wait, let me reread this I don't really understand it either".  SO, I have decided I will write a letter to this CI and help educate her to the facts, feelings, and rights of those of us whose lives are separated through adoption deserve.

If I can't change my plight then perhaps I can change someone else's.

I will write this letter very carefully.  I will bite my tongue alot I am sure and attempt to make this current CI aware of the facts.  Adoption is NOT a "fix all" for children.  She needs to know that not ALL adoptees have this wonderful new home and family.  Adoption is not hearts, flowers, and teddy bears and love and hugs.  It is painful, excruciatingly so many times, and especially for the children especially those who are not welcomed unconditionally with open arms.

I will never be accepted for who I am by my adoptive family.  They have a biological child for that now.  I have spent decades trying to be someone my parents and everyone else will love and feeling unworthy.  I am not their child I never will be.  I think I knew this when I was young around eight and my adoptive mother turned and said with a smirk "No wonder your mother gave you away."  The truth in that statement did not fully unfold to me for decades.  Until one day in pondering my adoptive situation did I realize that she really did not see herself as my "mother" she still saw me as "someone else's child".

I was not the blank slate my adoptive parents thought they were getting.  I am not quiet, or a fundamentalist, or a conformist.  I never will be.  I do not blame my adoptive parents for their belief system as the adoption system set them up just as they did me and my birth family.  I am rejected by two sets of parents and family.  I could not wish this fate on anyone.  The pain will never be gone but it is managable now.  I view life through eyes no one can comprehend except perhaps other adoptees who have walked, and still walk, in my shoes.   I am no longer alone to be told it doesn't matter and life is what we make of it.  Those are words spoken by well meaning, good intentioned, uninformed persons who have been brain washed by the adoption industry.  Those that have not had the very biological foundations erased out of their lives.  I have made the best of it...I try and change the lives of others.

For years I have not wanted to hurt my birth mother knowing that what she thought she was doing for the best for me turned into a never ending nightmare for her child.  I am not the kind of person to guilt anyone into loving me either.  I have wanted to spare her the inevitable pain of finding out her child was abused and rejected.  But, I can no longer sacrifice myself and the truth about my life for others.

This CI needs to know the truth.  I will cc the judge that presides over my case as well, and anyone else in the court office.  I am also going to include that I want a copy for my birth mother and father in my file if they ever chose to receive it.  It's time they all hear the truth.  It's time to end the system of closed records adoption forever.

Another Father's Day I wonder if....................

I thought perhaps after being told by my birth mother that my birth father had abandoned her when he found out she was pregnant, along with his family they wanted nothing to do with the pregnancy she said, that he was young and niave and perhaps he knew later on the mistake he had made in abandoning us.  I made excuses for his actions, probably self protection, because as a parent I couldn't fathom having a child out there and not wanting to know about them.  So, when I petitioned the Adoption court for the second time and they found my birth father and he wanted no part of me it was a shock, as it would be for almost anyone.

The Confidential Intermediary stated he never claimed to be my birth father but never denied it either.  And, that he was not willing to sign anything, meaning, he didn't want to "claim" me.  When asked for medical history the CI said he responded to my request with "I understand her need for medical history but everyone in our family is healthy."  So basically, he still washes his hands of me to this day and, nothing has changed that I know of.

A lot of focus in searching is usually in regards to your birth mother as she was the one who gave you life.  The birth father usually enters the picture second.  I've spent alot of years focusing on searching for and hoping for a relationship with my birth mother.  I don't think much of my birth father as a person or a man.  I say that without knowing anything but what my birth mother wrote to me and his denying my petition to the courts for information.  For me that speak volumes.  Today is the one day of the year I can't help but wonder how easy it was for my birth father to leave me behind and build a life with another family.  How does any person walk out of their child's life once, and then again knowing they are ill and in need of medical history still denying them anything?  If out of 364 days of the year it's easy to forget about me could this one day be different?  I will always wonder if...

I wonder if

I wonder if he thinks of me,
and if he does just what he sees.
If trapped in corners in his mind,
are thoughts of me from time to time.
Does this day bring back the past,
and if so the fate he cast.
When he walked the other way,
no hesitation, no delay.
Was I discarded easily?
No remorse, no memories?
On this day I wonder if.
You even remember I exist?

Time - The Petition (yet again) for ID info

I have to wait another few months before the Adoption court will repetition my birth parents (I know I know old school adoption reform activist I am politically incorrect in that "term" sorry) for ID medical or any information period.  In "Adoption Land" time is everything.  We try and be patient and wait.  But, people pass, people get lost, and we lose so much in "waiting mode".  It can be agonizing.  I am not in bad company which is a huge blessing I have so many that walk my shoes.  In the meantime I will fight the good fight....for truth and honesty in adoption policy.

Traces

Traces of past memories and shadows of the ghosts.
From another place and time I catch a glimpse at most.
Invisible are the barriers that are keeping me restrained.
From discovering hidden truths I'm so desperate to obtain.
Through obscure and secret passages through storms and
pouring rain, for remnants from so long ago I search and search
in vain.
Anxious to finally discover desperate to put to an end.
The anguish that's my enemy to make peace my final friend.
It's all I need to fill my life with content are those two names.
Until that time I live between the agony and the pain.

Feeling Grateful - Relentless Questions

Ok I've bitched, whined, moaned, and complained about my adoption plight enough this week after my rejection (and if I had a dime each time that word came into play in my life we ALL could retire) from the courts for a search for my birth father for updated medical information and or contact.  So, while I wait another 6 plus months I'll shelve the depression, frustration, and anger and do what I always do reach down and grab those proverbial boot straps and tug hard and lift myself back up.  Nothing has changed there.

Most people know I am not close, never have been, and probably never will be to my adoptive family that is a great understatement.  The details of that situation many know as well but I also feel if I continue dwelling on the past I get stuck there and it makes it almost impossible to live fully in the now which is the only part of life we really have.  All sides of my birth family, including birth grandparents, wanted and still want nothing to do with me.  It is one of the most indescribable and overwhelming senses of loss and pain I could even begin to try and explain but words can't sum it all up.

As I was arguing in a very unhealthy way, which we tend to do when under great duress, with another adoptee who was expressing great displeasure about the adoption community I realized how extremely lucky I was to have people in my life now that support me emotionally, unconditionally, and without doubt, hesitation, or question.  After years of feeling unworthy of any kind of real love I now know that this fallacy I believed in for far to long, that was the bane of my existence, simply is not true.

In changing some of the words in Sally Field's Oscar nomination comment I have to say "People LIKE me they really LIKE me".  It still surprises me to this day.  What a GREAT surprise!  No one can truly fathom the extreme importance of a positive personal belief system as an adoptee rejected by two families.  After years of living in doubt and darkness, decades actually, I have connections now that are healthy and nurturing.  I work with, and around, the most amazing people I could ever have the pleasure to meet.  It's a priceless gift I'll never be able to repay.  It has been an unexpected turn in the road called life and I wouldn't go back and change the bad things now because it never would have led me to the good.

So below is a poem I wrote 10 years ago.  It is still applicable to this day.  I'll always treasure the heart felt letter my first (natural or birth) mother wrote to me.  I was wanted, I was thought of, and I was prayed for.  For now, it'll have to be enough.  Maybe one day she'll get to know what she's been missing out on.


Relentless

Relentless questions drive my soul how many hours have the wondering stole?
Like pounding waves that wear away the strongest rock day after day.
My weary bones nearly gave in and let the persistant pounding win.
But there are those that lend me power when there is no sun in my darkest hour.
When the doubt hounds daily at my door and I feel I can't take any more.
They whisper the truth into my ears with hope and love resolve my fears.
I hold the goal within my sight and remember the reasons I continue to fight.
To find what was lost so long ago the place from where those questions grow.
How many hours have been lost in days and years what was the cost?
The time I've spent in somber thought and sorrowful reflection preplexed about,
what I'm to do with all I feel when unseen bonds remain so real.
I had a taste of reality when fractions of truth I was allowed to see.
Fate has brought us back together the soul deep ties could not be severed.
To know the tragic parting was not, in the end to be forgot.
And someday soon they'll find a way to share with me those missing days.
I'll wait until the time I'll know the place from where these questions grow.

A Stranger In The Dark - Living in the Closed Records Adoption System

Sometimes it seems so close and yet I stand so far away.
I seek the signs along the road to help me find my way.
Long distances I have traveled yet so many miles to go.
Against all odds I search around these obstacles that grow.
Traversing unknown territory I pray someday I'll find,
solutions to enigmas that will ease my burdened mind.
Like Alice through the looking glass I strive to understand.
How to unravel mysteries in this strange unfamiliar land.
Clues are few, no indications pointing to an end.
Lost track of all the hours and the time that I have spent,
revealing truths in this journey upon which I embarked.
To unearth secrets that keep me a stranger in the dark.


I spent alot of time these past few days trying to get people to understand the strange, unhealthy, dysfunctional world of closed records adoptions.  I have been told I am very intelligent, and so I'd like to believe.  I am complimented constantly for my ability to take a subject matter, research it, and turn it into understandable terms for others.

THEN WHY DOES NO ONE BELIEVE ME WHEN I TELL THEM ABOUT THE REALITIES OF THE CLOSED RECORDS SYSTEM OF ADOPTION???  Oh wait....was I yelling?  Sorry.

I have good, sound, credibility with almost everyone I know.  People I work with, are friends with, and even employers seek me out for advice, guidance, and input.  I am known for my honest, forthright nature, and ability to communicate.  Then why oh why do I continually fall short in getting some people, alot more than I care to count, to even fathom the information and facts I give them about the closed record system of adoption?  Not even my personal story which many seem to believe, or want to believe, has to be an anomaly within the adoption system.  So, I must be exaggerating, overreacting, and or God forbid they think I am lieing?  And why would I?  But, the facts and figures are out there, the evidence is in, and the results are overwhelmingly evident the closed records system of adoption does not work!

The social experiment of the past decades in taking a child and cutting it off from its roots and grafting it into a family without recourse to have access to biological family information is unhealthy, unnatural, and unnecessary.  It hasn't worked, it is not working now, and it won't work in the future.  In the words of my teenage son "EPIC FAIL"!

I have quoted stories, statistics, facts, figures, books, legislation, and history and still it just seems to fall on deaf ears.  Is it too shocking that we come face to face with the fact that this hearts and flowers and teddy bears system of adoption is not the pretty picture the industry creates?  That the truth is that adoption is full of faults, and secrets, based on lies and deceit, and ridden with fraud and falsifications?  That adoptees and their children are dieing trying to get decent medical and family history from agencies and courts that deny their petitions, make them pay outrageous amounts of money, or wait unacceptable amounts of time to even try to obtain vital life changing information?  That first mothers are living with the unending gut wrenching pain wondering where their children are, if they are dead or alive, or if they will ever see them again?  Or, how about all of the above?

This blog post hinges on my denial from the adoption court my chance to petition my birth father for any medical information (he denied me in 2003).  I was told I would have to wait another 6 plus months since I had petitioned two and a half years ago and can only petition every 3 years.  I only requested the search for updated medical be done for my birthmother not my birthfather in 2007.  The confidential intermediary told me I was only allowed one every 3 years.  I told her I did not request a search from my birth father but I certainly WOULD have if I had of known I had to wait!  No one has told me in the 12 years that I have been searching this fact.  What they do know is that I have been in the hospital three times over the last three years with further health issues, serious ones.  And, that now in the last 6 months I am having heart issues with chest pains and atrial fibrillation.  The CI even seemed confused about the information that was in my file.  Big surprise, she is the fourth CI I've had the "pleasure" to work with.

I guess I should consider myself "lucky" compared to other adoptees I know who have to pay hundreds of dollars into the court or agency first to even have an attempt at updated information or contact with their birth parents.  Somehow, this does not make me feel any better.  It makes me feel worse that the whole system of adoption revolves around ownership of children and future adults.  We are held hostage by a system and expected to feel grateful and happy we were "chosen".  I do not feel grateful or chosen.  I feel like a commodity bought and sold.  I feel ROBBED.  Robbed of a life that could have been so much better and so much different.  I feel so many things so many people don't want to hear.  But, I refuse to apologize.  So, I will do what I always do.  Suck it up and put my energy into adoption reform and education with the people I admire and value and learn from everyday.  One day we can hopefully retire from this work knowing that we have turned our pain into triumphs for others.  And when I do retire holding my original birth certificate while lieing on a beach would be the "piece de resistance".